As details on the murder investigation of 91-year-old journalist-turned-socialite Viola Drath, who died in her Georgetown home on Aug. 12, have emerged, the narrative has seemed nothing short of hard-boiled crime fiction. That didn't change with the release of court documents today.
On Tuesday, Drath's 47-year-old husband Albrecht Muth, who reportedly got chummy with [...]
We’re all wondering how to react to the scariest iterations of "flash mobs." On Sunday, a flash mob—an organized group that emerges and then disappears quickly, usually with the help of social media—reportedly descended on a 7-Eleven in Germantown, Md., where members allegedly stole snacks. It's a criminal activity we all want to see the end of.
One [...]
This weekend, in a 12-hour assault on prostitution, D.C. police arrested 74 people.
Some of the arrests were made in downtown hotels, some on District streets. According to Metropolitan Police Department Inspector Brian Bray, the operation, called "Off the Streets," was executed by vice officers from the Third District.
54 alleged johns were arrested, as well [...]
D.C. may be getting a little less attention from a masked avenger sworn to defend it. Most people in the District combat crime by being "eyes on the street," ready to call 911 whenever a thug snatches an iPhone, but a few do more. They don tights and cape and roam the streets as colorfully [...]
The D.C. cop who was just demoted after clashing publicly with Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier, Hilton Burton, says his lawyer is preparing yet another lawsuit against MPD. "They can say what they want," Burton says of getting his career shifted into reverse. "It's a bunch of shit."
Burton already has two civil suits pending against [...]
If a recent knock to the U.S. credit rating has made an already skittish American consumer even more so, you wouldn't know it standing in the cascade of flowing jerseys and bobbing baseball caps that swamped D.C. Sneaker Con this weekend, at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE. Patrons bought [...]
Duk-ki Yu, owner of Major, a sneaker store in Georgetown, has been in the shoe game for a minute now. After 20 years of lusting after the contours of various well-designed soles, his personal "stash" of kicks includes thousands. He's had to move his sprawling collection (worth somewhere around $100,000, he guesses) into storage to [...]
In D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday, 36 people were scheduled to be arraigned for carrying marijuana. The alleged offenders were collared by police for marijuana possession in the latter half of July and the beginning of August, and faced up to six months in prison time and up to $1,000 in fines. Court records [...]
Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy is trying his hand at being a twit.
After revving up a new Twitter account—@Courtland51—on Friday, it didn't take him long to get going. As of Tuesday afternoon, he'd racked up 43 tweets, was following 138 fellow users, and had collected 255 followers.
But Milloy isn't sure he likes it. Asked what he [...]
Despite the fact that, as this week's cover story points out, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier enjoys widespread popularity among D.C. residents, some cops aren't as adoring. Anti-Lanier police I've talked to say she's too strict of a disciplinarian and that her stringent approach to control was famously showcased in 2000, when she was [...]
Remember when a certain reformist-minded city administration went around closing stuff?
A group of fired daycare workers and their union—the American Federation of Government Employees—certainly do. On Tuesday, they filed a $10 million lawsuit against the D.C. government, alleging city officials sabotaged the Department of Parks and Recreation child-care programs they worked for and illegally privatized [...]
Assistant Chief Dianne Groomes was at the center of the allegations that Metropolitan Police Department officers cheated on mandatory exams last year. And now she's got something to say about it: She did it.
Groomes says she tried to help some police brass pass a 50-question test whose deadline was imminent.
That seems to contradict a [...]
Cops believe they've caught the driver of a red Camaro that plowed into District cyclist Ian Barry in May.
Barry and his friend Saul Leiken (pictured above) say they were pedaling their bikes home along an Adams Mill Road NW bike lane when the Camaro tried to make a turn into a nearby alley; the [...]
A D.C. Office of Inspector General investigation has concluded that the cops who gave Charlie Sheen a police escort through the District didn't screw up. It's also concluded that it doesn't trust Sheen's Twitter feed.
In a report the OIG said non-dignitary escorts "have been routine for years." In June, two officers who participated in [...]
Where's the line between being neighborly and stalking?
A swanky building with a rooftop pool,the Yale Steam Laundry Lofts on New York Avenue NW would seem to be a relaxing place to live, but perhaps not if you believe you're being watched.
Yale residents Vance Thompson and Rachelle Nigro have settled a civil complaint filed earlier this [...]
